


Focus on the Fire

by legendaryroar



Series: Sheith Angst Week 2018 [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Kerberos Pilot Error Announcement, M/M, mentions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 04:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15856071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendaryroar/pseuds/legendaryroar
Summary: The cadets are called into an assembly to be told of the failure of the Kerberos mission before the news breaks to the rest of the world.





	Focus on the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sheith Angst Week Day 6 ~~Torture~~ / **Pilot Error**.

Shiro’s dead. The Kerberos mission is gone. They lost contact. Presumed dead. Shiro is presumed dead.

The words eat away at him. Shiro’s _dead_. It can’t be. That can’t be right.

Cold creeps in around the edges, shivers break out over his skin. He hears a choking sound and it takes him a moment to realise it’s him. It takes a moment to make it stop. There’s movement around him, they’re looking at him, but he fixes his attention on the speaker. It’s not even an officer. It’s one of the PR people. He remembers him from that time he came hounding Shiro for a photoshoot when Shiro was supposed to have leave for the day.

That won’t happen again, he realises. Shiro won’t come and steal him away for the day when he has leave. Won’t take him out on the hoverbikes. He won’t be there to talk to, the only person Keith feels anything for in this place, even if he’s still so damn scared of just how much he does feel for Shiro. He won’t be there. He won’t be there to look at Keith like he’s worth something. Until Keith almost starts to believe it.

Shiro’s _dead_.

Keith can feel it, that deep, dark place inside of himself that’s cold and empty, it’s pulling him in. Dragging him down. Once it has him, there’s no getting out.

But this can’t be right. Shiro _can’t_ be dead. It has to be wrong. Something else must be going on.

Among the sea of officers at the front of the hall, he searches out Adam. As if knowing Keith needs it, knows he’s questioning it, Adam meets his gaze and gives him a slight nod, before returning to the same impassive expression all the others are wearing. Like it doesn’t even touch him.

But then, maybe it doesn’t. He’d let Shiro go. Space or him, and Shiro had chosen space. Maybe he’s happy.

That should make Keith angry, but the cold is creeping in. _Shiro’s dead_. It’s getting hard to breathe.

_Pilot error_ .

The words pull Keith back from the dark place he was going, where he sinks into himself and everything goes cold. That place he’s been in before and never thought he’d find his way out of, until Shiro helped him realise it was worth it.

He focuses again, listens more closely. There it is again.

_Pilot error._

Everything goes hot. The cold is quickly burned away. His gaze narrows on the speaker, standing alone at the head of the hall. Then he looks across the officers. All straight-backed and impassive. Unreactive in the fact of such obvious lies.

_Pilot error_ .

Not Shiro. If it was any other pilot, but not Shiro. How dare they?

His hands curl into fists. Adam finds him again in the crowd, but his look of warning only makes the fire burn brighter. He knows too, but he’s just standing there. Shiro is dead and they’re blaming it on him. Blaming him for his own death.

Whatever happened, Keith knows it wasn’t something as basic as pilot error. Not from Shiro, not from so me routine a mission, even if it was further than ever before.

As the assembly goes on, the cold keeps trying to creep back in. People are whispering even as the officers keep talking. Talking statistics, and offering counselling services.

On and on and  _pilot error, pilot error, pilot error._

Keith focuses on it, lets it burn through him so he doesn't sink into that cold dark place inside himself. He will, eventually, he knows. He’s always known he’ll find his way back there, but not yet. Not while there’s a scorching fire to be had.

When they’re dismissed, he moves away from the cadets. Someone grabs at him but he pulls away. Adam rushes out of the ordered lines of the officers, but Keith pushes past him. Pulls against the hands that grab at him.

They can do whatever they like to him, he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter when he’s bound for that cold place inside himself. But right now, right now he’s burning, and he won’t let them get away with this.

_Pilot error?_ No, he won’t let them turn Shiro’s death into something so mundane. Some statistic.

He’ll burn them all with him.

**Author's Note:**

> Probably not angsty enough for angst week, but this is where the prompt took me XD
> 
> You can find me at [legendaryroar](http://legendaryroar.tumblr.com) on tumlblr.


End file.
